The Pool of Tears

Yulhee was awoken by Seungwan shaking her roughly. Groaning and swatting at her with her hands, she blearily registered Seungwan saying, “There’s a phone call for you. Some Kim Junmyeon.”

How nice of Suho to call her, she thought fuzzily, letting Seungwan drag her to her feet and tow her towards the hall phone. This was also the first time Seungwan had really addressed her in ages. She wrapped her fingers around the receiver and mumbled an incoherent sound.

“Yulhee, I know it’s an awful hour, but I have a favour I need to ask. I’m worried about Kyungsoo; I think he might do something rash.”

“What?” Yulhee asked intelligently.

There was a shuffling noise in the background as someone else took the phone, and then Eunju was speaking. “I’ve been helping someone like you through their trauma; a lovely girl called Lee Hyunjung. She’s in a very delicate state right now and apparently Kyungsoo’s been asking to see her – and I’m concerned asking her about what happened right now might set her back. We're trying to find him right now, but we're only two people and Junmyeon needs to get to the station...”

“I’ll help you look for him, then,” Yulhee said, the words piercing through the fog in her brain and waking her right up. She felt a sudden foreboding. 

It had taken Kyungsoo a bit of questioning to find Hyunjung. After nosing about the elementary school and speaking to a few teachers, he’d eventually been pointed towards the playground area at the front. A group of children were running about the area, climbing all over the battered equipment. Hyunjung, he’d been informed, was the quiet, rather mousey-looking girl sitting on the swing sets and observing the proceedings. Her dark hair was tied into two pigtails, and the tips of her shoes were dragging through the dirt. She couldn’t have been older than thirteen.

Kyungsoo approached cautiously and carefully, feeling a bit uneasy about speaking to a child. She glanced up in a surprise when he came into a view, and he raised his hands and explained, “Hello, Hyunjung? I’m Eunju’s brother-in-law, Do Kyungsoo. She told me about you.”

“You’re Kyungsoo?” she asked, tilting her head and eyeing him tensely and warily. “She mentioned you.”

He nodded, sitting down on the swing set next to her, swaying back and forth a bit. “Yes, that’s me. Did she mention me because we’ve gone through the same experiences?” he asked, turning his arm over to expose the scar on it. Hyunjung shuddered, her grip on the swing set tightening, giving him a slight nod. She seemed to inch a little away. “Hyunjung, I’d like to help you out in any way I can. I’ve been trying to find out about what happened to the many people like us.”

“That seems scary,” she murmured.

“Well, it has gotten me into some messes,” Kyungsoo admitted, giving her a small smile. Hyunjung did not return it. She seemed to draw a little into herself whenever anyone made eye contact with her. “You see, I know about the creatures.”

Hyunjung’s body went absolutely rigid, and Kyungsoo had the very belated impression that he’d overstepped somewhere. “Everyone says they’re not real and, and, and –”

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he said, trying to sound soothing and knowing in the back of his mind that he was probably failing. “There’s nothing wrong with you; you aren’t seeing things –”

“So they are trying to take us all away?” Hyunjung cried, fear in her eyes, “The red-haired one, the one who left me there, he said that it’s only just starting, that, that…”

Abruptly, she pushed away from the swing set, bolting away from him just as Yulhee came racing onto the scene. “Kyungsoo!”

He looked at her, wild-eyed. “I shouldn’t have –”

“Of course you shouldn’t have! She was thirteen. Did knowing really matter so much?” Yulhee recalled how the child trembled, and Kyungsoo could not meet her gaze.

He bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Or are you just saying that because I’m unhappy?”

“I’m saying it because I realised I made a mistake and shouldn’t have stuck my nose in out of my own selfish interest,” Kyungsoo stated. He could feel her glaring at him, and it was the first time he had really seen Yulhee lose her temper like this. He felt ashamed. For such a long time, this had been all that had mattered to him, but now it felt feeble, pathetic. He thought of the withered thing that had been Baekhyun, and felt sick to his stomach.

“You still don’t get it,” Yulhee said softly, shaking her head and turning away, “You haven’t looked up long enough to realise how far from the shore you are.”

“Yulhee,” Kyungsoo’s tone was sharp. “I know you’re angry at me, and you’ve every right to be because I messed-up, but right now, we need to go after Hyunjung.”

“How can you –”

“Yulhee, she ran into the Woods!” Kyungsoo snapped.

He saw her face go white as she looked towards the small figure disappearing into the tree line, and she stared at him in utter horror. Then the two broke into a run towards the Woods.

Branches and leafs cracked under her feet as Yulhee pounded through the Woods, finding herself being thoroughly outpaced by Kyungsoo. What was even worse was that it had begun to rain, the drops getting thicker and heavier. It was almost like someone was mocking them. She shivered in her thin sundress, squinting through the downpour to see the little girl. She could hear Hyunjung still run